Not being British, not living in the U.K. I cannot understand what you wrote. Can you explain?

Yes. Apologies for my verbosity and general opacity of my prose.

We now live (I constantly travel back and forth – so not at the moment, but next week I shall be again) in a country (the UK), which is literally obsessed with race, ethnicity and diversity. You cannot apply for a job, teach in a school or have any interaction whatsoever with the State (and increasingly private organisations) without in some way being asked to engage in sociology. We are told that, in order to eradicate racism and prejudice, we must confer special advantages on certain special interest groups unscientifically grouped together under racial or ethnic categories and ‘celebrate’ these so-called differences. We are also told that, despite the massive influx of immigrants in particular over the last ten years or so, this is normal and that despite many of these people naturally possessing often radically different mores and customs to the Britons, any attempt to challenge this phenomenon or question its democratic legitimacy is wrong; ‘racist’; xenophobic.

I have a personal interest in this: my daughter has a slightly higher melanin content skin than I do. She was born in the UK and is already very smart: she knows there is a significant difference between her parents’ features and skin tones. What I don’t want, is that my daughter (and another on the way) grows up in a society which looks at her first and wants to know ‘where she’s from’, ‘what religion she follows’ etc. rather than accepting her as a HUMAN BEING first. I don’t want her to have to answer voting forms, census forms and job applications on which she has to differentiate herself from others because of an utterly evil mindset (in fact a Nazi mindset) that says ‘you’re different’ so ‘tell us about it so we can log it and compile statistics’. I want her and her sibling to treat others based on their humanity, not their race, religion or sexual orientation.

The point about ‘race consciousness’ in every area of daily life is that it fosters racism. It seems self-evident to me. The government co-opt the diversity agenda for their own ends (I’m buggered if I could tell you what those are – they’re not very clear). One of these ends appears to be the destruction of tradition and the elimination of any sense of pride in British history.

You, Mr Standing and others are correct to point out the anti-Semitism grounded in the BNP leadership. Yet, getting rid of the BNP will not solve the grievances at the heart of British society: educational nihilism, Europe, immigration, law and order, punitive taxation and poor value for money and the government’s cultural revolution, these are the issues that really matter to the public. Alas, only the BNP appear to be engaging with voters on a critical mass of these issues.

The British are not predisposed towards anti-Semitism or even voting for fascistic parties as ’some’ posters on HP would like to make out, but, unfortunately, I dare say the growing preponderance and incidence of anti-Semitism in the UK is mostly anathema to them.

As far as other special interest groups organising around religion, race and ethnicity are concerned, well this should happen in a free society, why not? What I object to, is when the State turns round and says ‘this group can organise along ethnic/racial/religious lines with the tacit exclusion of others that it entails, but this group can’t’. This is quite clearly the hypocrisy demonstrated by allowing literally thousands of groups to exist in the UK that, whilst they claim not to exclude others and be for the benefit of all, by their very nature, composition and branding they stand as monuments to exceptionalism.

Pax tecum

Not being British, not living in the U.K. I cannot understand what you wrote. Can you explain?

Firstly, if I were Callum, then my stance would be pro-Israel as opposed to anti-Zionist.

Secondly, enough with the Marx memes already, suffice to say that, like his fellow stinky chums Engels and Gramsci, the man was a liar. I accept your assertion that Jews were the majority in Jerusalem 150 years ago, but that being the case does not give Marx the intellectual freedom to manipulate Arabic in order to stress the suffering of the Jews.

Thirdly, your red herrings disappoint: in terms of misleading political typology, Stalinism and national socialism are about as far left as anyone can go. I have no wish to be tarred with the crimes of either criminal political ideology.

Fourthly, as far as the BNP are concerned, there was a time in the UK when race was not an issue; I yearn for those days. However, and the situation has significantly deteriorated in the last decade or so, we now find ourselves in the position as UK citizens of having a political class and fellow hegemonic travellers who utilise the pseudo-scientific construct of race in order to facilitate their cultural revolution. I object to this vociferously with every right-thinking sinew of my body. The BNP, in terms of race, merely articulate what is approved of for other special interest groups…and it stinks.

Of course I don’t subscribe to or endorse the policies of the Nazis or the BNP.

With my very best wishes and keep writing your invaluable posts here on HP…I shall no doubt enjoy them very much indeed.

Pax tecum

…. Callum?

Nothing equals the misery and the sufferings of the Jews at Jerusalem, inhabiting the most filthy quarter of the town, called hareth-el-yahoud, the quarter of dirt, between the Zion and the Moriah, where their synagogues are situated – the constant objects of Mussulman oppression and intolerance

Don’t waste any more of your time on Kevorkian who leaps to the questionable conclusion that Marx was attempting to translate the Arabic expression for Jewish Quarter when that is far from clear.

Without seeing the original quote, let alone the larger context of the piece, it’s more than likely that Marx, despite his low estimation of religion and distance from his Jewish heritage was more likely emphasising the sorry conditions endured by a native Jewish majority

Your gymnastics are touching, but it’s quite clear to me that Marx is translating the phrase he transliterates from the Arabic. Would he just assume that Americans were well versed in Arabic? Clearly, that is not the case and he, from my perspective with malice or forethought, snidely makes out that حرث means ‘dirt’ with all the negative connotations that it can have in English.

As for the context, it’s quite clear that he is emphasising the maltreatment of Jews and by evily mistranslating this phrase he associates the idea in the mind of English readers that the Arabs refer to Jews as ‘dirt’. What a colossal liar! What’s worse though is Mr Pfeifer quotes Marx and his mistranslation as ‘evidence’ in response to the machinations of Callum. I simple Google of ‘hareth el-yahoud’ and similiar transliterations produces thousands of instances where persons have used Marx’s quote to reinforce the notion that Arabs treated Jews abominably. I don’t doubt they did, and still do, but to use this quote and rely on this Marx character is to, to use the hegemonic vocabulary of your ‘ilk’, endorse ‘institutionalised racism’ against Arabs.

And why do you assume that ‘that part wouldn’t interest Kevorkian in the slightest’? Yet another red herring I see, from the same school as ‘Are you advocating the policy proposed by BNP?’

Don’t waste any more of your time on Kevorkian who leaps to the questionable conclusion that Marx was attempting to translate the Arabic expression for Jewish Quarter when that is far from clear.

Without seeing the original quote, let alone the larger context of the piece, it’s more than likely that Marx, despite his low estimation of religion and distance from his Jewish heritage was more likely emphasising the sorry conditions endured by a native Jewish majority, quite in keeping with the journalistic style of the times (think Mark Twain and Charles Dickens).

The point of the paragraph, clearly, was that the Jews lived in misery before Ashkenazim were making aliyah in any number, sustained only by support from the Jewish diaspora; held in contempt by Christians and Muslims alike, the latter not comprised of a native population, but a mixture:

[...] and that the sedentary population of Jerusalem numbers about 15,500 souls, of whom 4,000 are Mussulmans and 8,000 Jews. The Mussulmans, forming about a fourth part of the whole, and consisting of Turks, Arabs and Moors, are, of course, the masters in every respect, as they are in no way affected with the weakness of their Government at Constantinople. Nothing equals the misery and the sufferings of the Jews at Jerusalem, inhabiting the most filthy quarter of the town, called hareth-el-yahoud, the quarter of dirt, between the Zion and the Moriah, where their synagogues are situated – the constant objects of Mussulman oppression and intolerance, insulted by the Greeks, persecuted by the Latins, and living only upon the scanty alms transmitted by their European brethren. ”

That part wouldn’t interest Kevorkian in the slightest.

Vikings, Romans, Normans etc. seized land in the British Isles, but you don’t see people jumping up and down calling for ‘compensation’ from the modern day inhabitants of Sweden, Rome or Normandy. That would be plainly absurd. Which is pretty much the same as your position with regard to support for the right of some ‘groups’ to self-identify along mythical and unscientific ethnic lines but not for others.

The central point here is that the BNP’s rationale has nothing whatsoever to do with the respective claims and counter-claims of Israelis and Transjordanians to the same piece of land.

They did not commit a genocide. But in Australia the natives had to suffer a lot under the rule of the white British.

And no doubt they still do suffer today to a certain extent. Britons too suffered at the hands of invaders and yet nobody is idiotic enough to wring their hands about this.

So is there anybody in the UK who is denying New Zealand or Australia the right of existence?

Not as far as I’m aware, no.

Your remarks about Marx are those of somebody who writes about a subject matter he does not know and is even proud not to know.

Yes, I acknowledged this. Marx doesn’t interest me in the slightest.

Marx was never in the Middle East, he wrote for this American paper in order to earn money. But he was very well informed.

Okay. I’ve learned something today, thank you. If he was so ‘well informed’ as you assert, why did he so egregiously mistranslate an Arabic expression that, to the best of my knowledge, never existed as the eponym of the Jewish ‘quarter’ of Jerusalem? Hmmmm?

So to show off that you do know Arabic while Marx did not know that language is ridiculous.

What a ridiculous off the cuff ad hominem! So let’s get this straight: YOU quote Marx transliterating an Arabic expression that, from the evidence: a) has never existed as the name of an area of Jerusalem and b) is grossly mistranslated by Marx evidently with malice or forethought, and you accuse me of ’showing off’ when I highlight Marx’s error and yours?

I did not charge the Brits to be racist. I charge the BNP to be racist.

Okay. Every last member, or the organisation as a whole and by extension every member?

And what you do is the old method of Stalinist and Nazis, you put things into my mouth I have never said and what is worse you equate the UK with the BNP. And your silly remark on Austria does not make it better.

If I’ve misquoted you or attributed something that you did not actually say, then I apologise. However, it is YOU who first made the ridiculous comparison between (and it is a ridiculous one) between someone on this thread prioritising the eternal and pre-eminent rights of Transjordanians to land and claims that the BNP and its members make towards the British Isles being some sort of Folkland. It is partly thanks to you and your ‘ilk’ that any discussion of immigration in the UK immediately becomes one of race and is defined on your terms.

Again you imply that I am for a “multicultural utopia”

Yes, you’re right, you made no such claim. Apologies.

also this is a regular accusation of Austrian neo-Nazi and their ilk against anybody who wants to see the values of democracy respected.

I’m not sure about Austrian neo-Nazis but the fallacy you enlist here is indicative of a particularly malevolent train of thought.

Are you advocating the policy proposed by BNP?

And to cap it all off, yet another red herring…and which might that be Aristotle?

You can’t give something ‘back’ if it wasn’t owned in the first place.